I’ve never bought into the flea bite theory.
It’s more likely that Y Pestis made the jump from animal to human due to human consumption of marmots and other carriers of the disease.
In the time period and place in question it was common for the poorest of the poor to subsist on poor diets with marmot making up the bulk of their meat.
Because their diets were poor those people had compromised immune systems. What does a disease do when it meets a compromised immune system for long periods of time? It gets stronger until it can overcome even healthy immune systems, just like ailments today are becoming drug resistant versions of the original.
Even today marmots are considered a delicacy among the poor in the steppes of Eurasia. As a boy the youth who would become Genghis Khan had to hunt marmots to see that his mother and siblings were fed.
I’ve never bought into the flea bite theory.
It’s more likely that Y Pestis made the jump from animal to human due to human consumption of marmots and other carriers of the disease.
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I agree. The human digest tract is predetermined to be the primary vector to spread deadly viruses. This vector has caused all of the evolutionary mutations which so drastically changed us from our primitive primate ancestors of 3 million years ago.
Why would 1340 be any different?
Zonulin is the primary infection facilitator.
Marmots live at alpine elevations, fleas not so much as it tends to be too dry for their eggs to survive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LXq6vKfIuA
A hunter prepares two marmots shot at dusk. He removes the organs and the guts. He eats the kidneys raw. The heart, liver and other edible organs are placed back in the gut hole along with the hands and feet. The Marmot is cooked by inserting hot river stones in the gut cavity while the skin is burned away using a torch. It is very chewy because the skin in eaten with the meat and fat. The Mongolians accept it as a delicacy.